Best in the West Rib Cook-Off

The rib cook-off is finally given its due!

Ensconced within the classical tradition, the rib cook-off can at last be seen as the honorable institution it has ever been.

The pig in his cerulean toga and his laurel wreath signifying high birth and virtuous deeds readies to open the games and make merry.

Friends, Nevadans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to eat this here pig, not to praise him.
The evil that pigs do lives after them;
The good is oft consumed along with their flesh;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was delicious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Blah blah blah. Yeah, that's all very artsy-fartsy and everything, but maybe you should just listen to the pigs and start eating.

Civilization depends on obeying the pigs' wishes.

It always has.

Al Baik

It is with equal parts excitement and nausea that we discover, again, that the animals' death-drive is universal. Wherever we look, to the New World, the Old, to Asia, we see animals who want nothing more than to be dead. And now, with al Baik, it is clear that the Great Wish extends even into the Arabian Peninsula.

The 37-year-old franchise's 40-plus outlets and its 18 secret herbs and spices are capably represented by a dapper chicken with a giant bow tie and a dracular collar.

It's "nice" knowing that some things—for instance, nattily attired animals contentedly awaiting death—are the same wherever you go. It's like we've always said: Suicidal animals are the universal language.

Addendum: While we know it doesn't really, we choose to believe that al Baik means The Beak.

Vintage Thanksgiving Day Roast Turkey

You there! Am I to understand you feel yourself qualified to dine upon my roasted flesh? Pardon me, but it is to laugh!

Have you failed to take note of my breeding, my station? My top hat is cocked at a superior angle. My cape hangs off my shoulderless frame in such a way as to convey the pride of my lineage. My walking stick—purchased from the finest bird haberdasher on the eastern seaboard—is worth more than your great aunt Myrtle's trousseau.

That you should partake of me. Why, it strains propriety.

I shall wander these forlorn streets in search of the man who deserves this bounty. Today is my day, and I will have satisfaction.

Until then, good day!

(Thanks to Dr. Bea for the referral. You should know the good doctor has a knack for digging up turkey-themed horrors. "Enjoy" these posts about Spammy, Manny's, and the Turkey Hooker.)



Addendum: Visit with the ghosts of Thanksgivings past: 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

Vintage Crawfish

In his pan, the crawgentleman salts himself judiciously and checks the results with his hand mirror.

You know how we sometimes believe that our modern world, with its hurry-up underpinning, its speeding technology, its celebrity scandals, is a breeding ground for absurdity and insanity?

Well, sure, maybe.

But things were plenty crazy back in the days of celluloid collars and toothbrush mustaches, too.

For instance, this crustacean has clearly gone around the bend. He can manipulate objects. He demonstrates a sense of self. He cares about his appearance. And yet he cooperates with his killers. He will season himself, thank you very much. No, no, don't bother setting him in the—no, he will arrange himself in the pan. He can do it. If you would just let him—please! Just have a seat. He'll have himself brought out to you when he's ready. There's a good man. Yes, thank you.

(Thanks to Dr. Javier for the referral.)

Leonard's Pit Barbecue

More aristocratic pigs tempting you to eat them.

We've seen them before (in both their pre-death and their post-living states), and they never fail to impress.

You see, even in these times of economic uncertainty, where the Average Joe looks upon the high priests of finance with richly deserved suspicion, the wealthy pig still commands respect. Still, they look to him, for guidance, for wisdom, for an example. And when the example he gives is one of utter self-abnegation… Well, it does contribute to the pervasive feeling of impermanence, the unmooring of our institutions, the weakening of our most celebrated beliefs.

Which, bizarrely, is Leonard's objective. He wants you to eat your betters. He wants you to strip him of his finery. To trample his striped trousers. To poke him in the eye with his own walking stick! To choke him with his spats and suffocate him with his top hat!

If you can't upend the System, if you can't avenge yourself upon the keepers of accounts, the repossessors and foreclosers, the buyers and sellers, the accumulators of wealth, then topple him!

Topple Leonard! Cast him down, down, all the way down!

Les Pigs Extraordinaire

The thing about these black-tie images is that they are doubly deceptive. They intend to deceive the pigs twice over.

(We are reminded of many royal pigs we've seen over the years (for instance, this one and this one), pigs who were sold a bill of goods. See more examples here.)

They've given him not the crown and throne of Old World royalty, but the top hat and tuffet of the New World overclass. Do you suppose they really see him as their social better? Do you imagine it possible they are not laughing at him behind their hands?

They've set him up high, on the pedestal of the elite, but they consider him low-born. The lowest. Theirs to do with as they see fit. Deserving nothing. They hurry to wait on him, smirking.

Txoko

Around the world, every tongue tells animals the good news: The end is nigh! Your sentence is almost done! You will soon leave the state to which your nature condemned you—petty life. (Bah!)

In this case, the language is Basque, and the animals have heard the call. They have put on their smartest clothes. Their little jackets, their little caps. The pig has even put on his little wings. Or maybe he got a head start on the death?

Anyway, they're dying or ready to die or freshly dead in their little corner (which is what "txoko" means in Basque, though it also refers to a type of restaurant, or something—we confess we're past caring).

This isn't so much ceremony for the soon-to-be-former "food" animals, as it is a formal occasion, an opportunity to go out with a bang, to say good-bye at last to life (bah!) with dignity. Everything about the image bespeaks dignity and status and rectitude: the coat of arms, the crown, the clothing. These aren't barnyard animals, after all, dumb brutes who wait around to get killed. No, these two seek it out, like they would a cunning investment or fortuitous employment prospect.

(Thanks to Dr. Erika for the referral and the photo.)

Franks & Toppings

Salmon: We're on, guys! We're on!

Cow: Hello!

Chicken: Welcome! We're the Franks & Toppings Boys, and we're happy you could come!

Salmon: And we're happy to bring you the Franks & Toppings message! Isn't that right, Chicken?

Chicken: You know it, Salmon! Franks & Toppings provides such a wonderful service to the folks in southeast Texas. It's a privilege to die, knowing we're so delicious—

Cow: Privilege to what?

Chicken: —and organic!

Cow: It's a privilege to what?

Salmon: You're stepping on his line again.

Cow: I know, I know, but did he say it's a privilege to die?!

Salmon: It is a privilege to die! That's why I hired someone to help me into this tux.

Chicken: Look, can I keep going?

Salmon: Keep going.

Cow: What's happening?

Chicken: That's right, Cow. We are lucky to die for such fine fare!

Cow: I didn't say that!

Chicken: Frankfurters, burgers, grilled salmon sandwiches, and more!

Cow: I never said that!

Salmon: And because it's organic, you can feel good about eating us.

Cow: You're sick.

Chicken: Good question, Cow. Yes, the talented cooks at Franks & Toppings will make your flesh even tastier with a wholesome selection of fresh toppings!

Cow: (sobbing)

Salmon: Get hold of yourself! Say the thing about grass-fed beef.

Cow: About…?

Salmon: Grass-fed beef! Like the picture!

Cow: Where the hell did you get that? I didn't pose for that! What the hell's going on?

Chicken: Ha ha! Good one, Cow. They should listen to our jingle!

Salmon: That'll get your toe tapping!

Cow: (teeth chatter)

Chicken: And your mouth watering!

Cow: Oh god oh god oh god.

Le Cornichon

If you're like most sex-crazed monsters bent on the destruction of everything sensible minds hold dear, when you think of fine French cuisine, you think of goosewomen offering up their legs for your consumption.

Like a cross between the Martini Bitter ads and the horrors of Rachachuros, this lovingly crafted portrait of a buxom half-goose, half-Marie Antoinette simultaneously titillates and shames.

She sits in her boudoir, waiting for us, petticoats splayed to bare those long, long legs, luxuriously anticipating the moment when we come to her, predatory gourmands, eyes alight with longing, hunger straining our nerves, and hack off her leg and eat it.

It's such a welter of conflicting themes it could occupy a cadre of psychoanalysts for months. Bestiality, cannibalism, good old-fashioned suicidefoodist denial: they all jostle for space in a scrum of specious propositions.

Is she woman? Is she goose? Is she food? She's all three, a feathered, smooth-skinned, avian, bosomed entrée! Her gleaming shoes are even garnished with parsley!












Lest you think Le Cornichon cares only for sexualized food, these images remind us that the suicidefoodist's reach extends farther than regal floozies.

Figures from history, figures bespeaking the finer things—these too can be coaxed into the same paradoxical machine, which can anthropomorphize and dehumanize at the same time.

And so, Napoleon is recast, improbably, as a squid (one with the erroneous, dumbbell-pupiled eye of an octopus) and a vintner as a rooster.

The artisan, the emperor, the princess all wish to be like you—to be better than you!—and also to be cast down in your sight as mere stuff.

Pork Rinds, a retrospective

It's the quaintest obscurantism in the suicidefoodist canon: pork rinds. As though pigs are, what? Melons? Do melons smile like that? Dream or hope like that? Ha!

This rogues' gallery of fiercely oblivious spokespigs represents a soaring low-point in the annals of meaninglessness. Somehow—and we agree that this lacks a consistent logic—the sight of pigs extolling the virtues of their own fried skin is worse than pigs talking up their own cooked meat. It's more desperate. More depraved.

The very idea of pork rinds is so revolting, it's a wonder we haven't discussed them more often. In fact, the last time was more than eight months ago. So.

Welp! No more stalling.




























































The entire breadth of pigkind has turned out to support the proposition that their skin makes a convenient and appetizing snack. The top-hatted captain of industry, the dancing fool, the simple country soul, even the cowboy atop his docile flying buffalo—all pigs, from the lowliest to the loftiest, give the nod to pork rinds!







Addendum: If you can bear it, revisit our discussion of the most horrendously named product in the field of pork skin offerings. Yes, even worse than Microwave Pork Puffies (see above), but just by a hair.